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Latest news from Loughborough University

24
January 2007

PR
07/09

Loughborough University takes mobile phone health monitoring
to India

Loughborough University engineers have
forged a partnership with experts in India to develop their unique
mobile phone health monitoring system.
The device, which was first unveiled in 2005, uses a mobile phone
to transmit a person’s vital signs, including the complex electrocardiogram
(ECG) heart signal, to a hospital or clinic anywhere in the world.

Created by Professor Bryan Woodward and Dr Fadlee Rasid from the Department
of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, the system enables a doctor
to observe remotely up to four different medical signals from a freely
moving patient. Signals that can be transmitted include the ECG, blood
pressure, oxygen saturation and blood glucose level.

Now Professor Woodward has been awarded a grant by the UK-India Education
and Research Initiative (UKIERI), enabling him to join forces with experts
in India on the project. Working with the Indian Insitute of Technology
Delhi (IIT Delhi), the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Aligarh
Muslim University and London’s Kingston University, he is hoping
to miniaturise the system, designing ‘smart’ sensors and mini-processors
that are small enough to be carried by patients and able to acquire biomedical
data from them. The network of sensors will be linked via a modem to mobile
networks and the internet, and to a hospital computer. The device would
then be used by doctors to remotely monitor patients suffering from chronic
diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes, which affect millions of
people across the world.

“Such a ‘Mobile Disease Management System’ is long
overdue,” says Professor Woodward. “Especially in view of
the proliferation of applications in mobile data communications. It is
also achievable in a three-year time frame and should provide a step-change
in improving the quality of life of patients needing expert diagnoses,
and for those with pre-diagnosed conditions or undergoing post-operative
care.

“In the UK, the project will allow a more patient-driven health
service, as promoted by the Government to improve the efficiency of health
care delivery. In India, the project will link clinics and regional hospitals
in remote areas to centres of excellence. As in the UK, the Indian Government
is encouraging the integration of new and existing networks, much needed
because of a large population spread over a vast area.

“I am delighted to have gained the support of the UKIERI to take
this life-enhancing research to the next level – and tap in to the
knowledge of experts in India.”

Clinical trials of the system will take place in the UK and India over
the next three years.

The project will be managed by Loughborough University, which with
IIT Delhi will form a new mobile- health partnership ‘hub’.
Both partners have extensive academic, medical and industrial partners.
In the UK, the ‘satellite’ will be Kingston University,
with its spin-out company H2M World that is developing a ‘Universal
Intelligent Decision Support System’. In India, the satellites
will be the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, which has experience
of country-wide clinical trials, and Aligarh Muslim University, which
will play a key role in medical signal processing.

Loughborough has an established reputation for excellence in teaching
and research, strong links with industry, and unrivalled sporting achievement.
Assessments of teaching quality by the Quality Assurance Agency place
it in the top flight of UK universities; the National Student Survey
ranked Loughborough in the top five among full-time students; and industry
highlights the University in its top five for graduate recruitment.
Around 40% of Loughborough’s income is for research, and 60% for
teaching. The University has been awarded five Queen's Anniversary Prizes:
for its collaboration with aerospace and automotive companies such as
BAE Systems, Ford and Rolls Royce; for its work in developing countries;
for pioneering research in optical engineering; for its world-leading
role in sports research, education and development; and for its outstanding
work in evaluating and helping to develop social policy-related programmes.